


Mirror Mirror

by Fire_Bear



Series: FrUK Spring Festival 2017 [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Day 3, First Meetings, FrUKSpringFestival2k17, M/M, Magic, Magic Mirrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-28 11:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10830774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Bear/pseuds/Fire_Bear
Summary: Arthur's mum decides to take advantage of his new, big house to offload some unwanted items - like the mysterious mirror she found in the attic.





	Mirror Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Maybe OOC Francis for certain reasons.

Arthur's sudden success meant that he could now afford to buy a large house in order to store his massive collection of books while also being able to move around without having to continually shift piles of them. It had four bedrooms, one of which he set aside for Peter, and had enough other rooms that Arthur was able to work in one, read in another and sit in yet another to watch TV.

He decorated it himself, using block colours for the rooms he would entertain visitors. The kitchen was kept simplistic, mainly because it wasn't a room he liked to spend time in. Peter was allowed to choose how to decorate and they had had some fun splashing messy polkadots on the walls. For the rest of them, Arthur had asked a friend to kindly draw out some of his favourite scenes from his favourite books. It made his hallway, his bedroom, his study and his private lounges into a sort of mural of dramatic figures fighting evil or falling in love.

After weeks of decorating in his free time, there was only one room to figure out what to do with. Arthur stood in the blank room, the walls a horrible beige from the previous owners. There was nothing in it and Arthur couldn't think of anything beyond using it as yet another bedroom. Just as he was about to give up his musing for the day, the doorbell rang and he hurried down the stairs, glad for the distraction.

His mother threw her arms around him as soon as he opened the door. He hugged her back, despite his surprise. "Mum?" he said. "What are you doing here?"

"Don't you want me to visit?" she asked with a pout.

"No," Arthur replied. "I just wasn't expecting you." He peered around her, looking for Peter who usually came with her. Instead, he spotted her red Range Rover, filled to the brim with boxes and something large and metal. "What on-?"

"Peter told me that you've got a spare room at the moment. I'm doing a clear-out and I thought you could use it to store the things we're selling at the next car boot sale until it's time for it." She gave Arthur a pleading look and he could only sigh in response.

"All right," he agreed. "I suppose it gives me more time to figure out what I'm going to do with it."

They began the arduous task of hauling several boxes up two flights of stairs. At first, they stacked them around the outside of the room but it wasn't long until they were taking up the centre of the room. Eventually, his mother stopped him from using up all the space. "We need to put the mirror in here before anything else," she told him. "Otherwise we won't have anywhere to put it."

"Ah, yes, about that," Arthur said as he followed her down the stairs once again. He had already seen the full-length mirror when they had begun emptying the car. It was a great hulking thing he was not aware his parents had owned. "Where did you get that?"

"You know," his mother said, "I'm not entirely sure. I found it in the attic – I think it's been there longer than we have."

"It's rather ornate, though. Surely it would have cost more than the cost of living there for a month? Why would anyone leave it behind?"

Shrugging, his mother stepped out of the front door. "I really have no idea but we obviously don't need it so out it goes! Now, hurry up! I'm meeting a friend for lunch in an hour and we've still got more to take upstairs." She marched over to the car and took hold of one end of the mirror.

Arthur gave up on his questioning. Nothing ever came between his mother and meeting up with her friends. He quickly moved over to help her and vaguely hoped they wouldn't break the thing trying to get it out of the car.

* * *

Later, once his mum had left, Arthur made himself a cup of tea and collapsed onto his favourite couch. He still wasn't sure how the mirror had fit in the car in the first place as it had taken a lot of wiggling and frustration for them to remove it. Then they'd had to take it up to the room. They'd left a path amongst the boxes leading to it and around them so they could find anything if they needed it. Arthur hoped he wouldn't be sent to search for something his father actually wanted to keep.

Thinking about the mirror made him frown. Their house hadn't exactly been small but it hadn't been big enough to warrant the kind of luxury the mirror offered. Especially not when the previous owners consisted of a family as large as their own and a little old lady with all her cats. If neither of his parents had bought it then he couldn't see who else would have left it there. And, in all of his exploring of the attic, he'd never noticed it. Then again, he had stayed away from a particularly rickety set of boxes after one had fallen from the top while he was there. It had terrified him enough that he avoided the corner. Maybe the mirror had been hidden there.

Curious, Arthur finished his tea and returned to the room. He frowned around at it, annoyed that it was so cluttered. That had been exactly why he had gotten such a big house, so this wouldn't be a problem. Sidling in, he walked up to the mirror and surveyed it.

The mirror was a foot taller than Arthur, with elegant metal framing it. From a point above him, the metal swirled out in curls and swept down around the glass until it clumped together at the bottom to make the heavy 'feet'. It was covered in a thin layer of dust, as if it had been left standing for a while before it had been covered up. Arthur stepped forwards and wiped away enough for him to see his own face. His puzzled frown stared back at him.

Thinking on one of his favourite books, he used his sleeve to wipe away the rest of the dust and stared at it, wondering what he would see in the Mirror of Erised had this been it. Of course, nothing happened and he laughed at himself. Putting his hands on his hips, he declared, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest – _prince_ – of them all?"

"Not you, clearly," said a voice in the same instant the mirror turned dark and revealed a face.

Startled, Arthur screamed and stumbled away, tripping on a box and falling to the floor. He stared up at the mirror which now revealed the face of a man with long hair and stubble. Unfortunately, the face was entirely blue so Arthur couldn't pick out any other features. The man's face was smiling in amusement – and relief, Arthur thought.

"Y-You- What?" Arthur stuttered, trying to work out what was going on.

"Hello," said the face. "My name is Francis and-"

"No," Arthur said, scrambling to his feet, heart thumping. "No. This... This is a dream. Or a hallucination." He turned his back on the mirror. "This isn't real. It's not- It's just my imagination. I better write it down before I forget – I could use this." And he fled the room, carefully not listening to the shouts coming from the mirror.

* * *

Arthur spent the rest of the day thinking about the mirror.

It hadn't been a dream: he hadn't awoken in his bed or on the couch. And he hadn't taken anything that would cause him to hallucinate. And he had never imagined something happening in such a vivid scene. There were only two other options: it had been some sort of computerised projection – which he knew was pretty much impossible with how flat the mirror was – or there had really been a magic face in the mirror.

_When you have eliminated the possible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._

That didn't mean that Arthur was going to do any more investigating. He would leave well enough alone. Nothing would make him go back into the room. So he went about the rest of his plans for the day before retiring to bed.

In the morning, he went back upstairs after eating breakfast to cautiously enter the room. Everything was still. The mirror was innocuous and reflected the room in the dim light from the window. Arthur flicked the light on and circled the thing, checking for anything that could be used to project a face onto the mirror. When he found nothing, he returned to stand in front of the mirror.

Nothing happened.

Biting his lip, Arthur cast his mind back to the day before. He sighed. "Mirror, mirror," he mumbled, "on the wall, who is the fairest prince of them all?"

Nothing happened.

Arthur sighed in relief when a thought occurred to him. He chewed on his lip for a moment, arms folded and finger tapping as he tried to come to a decision. Eventually, he braced himself and said, "Francis?"

"Yes?" said the voice from before and the face reappeared, eyebrow raised.

Despite being prepared for it, Arthur still flinched at his appearance. He took a quick, deep breath and stared at the face. "You... You're a mirror," he said, weakly.

"I hadn't noticed," the mirror replied, dryly.

"But- I just- What on Earth is going on?"

"I'm a magic mirror," Francis explained. "I can show you things, if you ask in the proper way. And I can provide information and conversation, should you wish."

"Does that include how you came to be?"

"I can only tell you what I remember and I don't remember my creation. I just was and now I am."

"You think therefore you are, huh?" Arthur murmured.

"More or less," Francis agreed. "Now, how may I serve?"

Arthur shook his head. "I don't have anyone I want to see. It's not as if there's a princess I want to make disappear."

Francis sighed. "My original owner  _did_ take that a little too far."

Blinking, Arthur gaped at him. "Snow White is  _real_ ?!" he exclaimed.

"Well, yes. Of course it is."

"But- How-? Which country was she the princess of?"

"She was the daughter of Philip IV of Waldeck. Her stepmother forced her to move to Brussels."

"Wait. Wait a minute. Where the heck is 'Waldeck'?" asked Arthur.

"It's now part of Germany. At the time, it was part of the Holy Roman Empire."

"And her mother... created you?"

"Maybe. She used me to watch over her and she soon discovered that Margarete had fallen in love with a prince – a Spanish prince, before you ask."

"And then she tried to kill her," Arthur said, frowning a little.

"She succeeded. Eventually."

"Really?"

"Yes." There was a brief pause as Arthur marvelled at the information. Then Francis cleared his throat – or, at least, made a noise as if he was. "Now, who would you like to see?"

"I told you," said Arthur with a click of his tongue, "I don't have a princess to stalk."

"What about princes?" Francis asked, smirking a little.

Arthur's eyes narrowed. "I don't want to see anyone."

Francis hummed. "Well, in that case, I'll go see what the world is like now – I've missed a fair bit being covered like that."

"Didn't that protect you from getting... well... dusty?"

"It also stopped me from freely exploring the world as I did in the centuries beforehand," Francis explained. "I'd like to know what's happened out there."

"You could ask me?" Arthur suggested.

"No, thank you," Francis said, primly. "All humans have a limited amount of knowledge so I'll do it myself, thank you. If you need me, just call on me like before and I'll be here in an instant."

"If you're sure..." said Arthur, slowly.

The face in the mirror disappeared without further ado. Arthur stared at it and wondered just how much power it held. What on Earth was he going to do with it?

* * *

Deciding to leave Francis to do whatever magical thing he did, Arthur went back to his life. He wrote another novel, a magic mirror featuring in it heavily. Why not, he had thought. His kitchen became a haven of amateurish cakes for a bake sale one week and the next he was helping his little brother make a costume for a fancy dress party. As the months passed by, Arthur almost forgot about Francis, only remembering when he mused about the room, wondering when his mum was going to take the rest of the boxes away.

While he happily continued with everything he had been doing before, his parents' home life became strained. A previous affair while Arthur's mother had been travelling for work came to light and, suddenly, Arthur had another brother. Despite being shocked and dismayed upon hearing the news of his father's infidelity, Arthur quite liked the teenager who had appeared. His mother, however, was livid. For weeks on end, he heard about the loud arguments from Peter who seemed to be getting more upset every time he called Arthur. Not knowing what else to say, he told Peter that they'd stop soon.

They didn't.

One day, three months after he had last talked to Francis, Arthur came home from a shopping trip just as the sun was setting. His mobile was ringing as he tried to manoeuvre himself inside without dropping anything. Ignoring it, he kicked his front door closed and shuffled to the kitchen. It was when his home phone started ringing that he paused and frowned. Hurriedly setting the carrier bags down on the island, Arthur darted through to his main living room and grabbed the handset there.

"Hello?" he said.

"Arthur!" his mother cried, sounding frantic. "Is Peter with you?"

"What? No. I'm not watching him till the weekend. Am I?"

"Oh, no," Mrs. Kirkland breathed. "He... He left a note in his room."

"What?" Arthur repeated, eyes widening, his mind flying to all sorts of nightmare scenarios.

"He's run away. Packed a few of his things, some food is missing from the kitchen and he's... He's just _gone_!"

"Have you called the police?" Arthur asked quickly, already preparing himself to go back out.

"Yes, of course. I just-"

"It's okay, Mum. We'll all come help. Even Patrick will, if you let him know."

There was a short silence. "We... We were arguing about him again," his mother admitted.

Arthur bit his lip. Peter had sounded miserable when he had spoken to him yesterday about that very same thing. "Have you checked his usual hiding spots?" he asked, thinking desperately for somewhere his brother would flee to.

"Yes," his mother replied, beginning to sound frustrated. "He's not in the tree house or down by the stream or in your fairy clearing. And I can't think of anywhere else he could be. It's getting dark, Arthur, what am I-?"

"I'll be there soon, Mum. We'll find him. I promise."

Although it didn't sound as if she believed him, they said their goodbyes and hung up. Then Arthur rushed back into the hall. He caught sight of his shopping out of the corner of his eye and paused. Some of the things in the bags would spoil if he didn't put them away – including the ice cream he'd bought for Peter. Making a quick decision, he hurried into the kitchen and, instead of emptying the bags, shoved the ones with all the refrigerated items into his fridge and the frozen ones into the freezer. As he shut the freezer, he caught sight of his reflection in the sleek, shiny metal of the door. He paused, a thought occurring to him.

With a sharp breath, Arthur spun on his heel and raced to the room with the mirror, throwing the door open with such force that it rebounded off a set of boxes and hit his elbow as he walked in. He almost walked into it in his haste and he wiped off as much dust as he could in one sweep of his arm. Then he stepped back and said, "Francis?" When nothing happened, he scowled and said, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, where is my baby brother?"

"Which one?" Francis replied as his face appeared with a pleasant expression. It fell into concern when he spotted how agitated Arthur looked. "What's wrong?"

"Peter ran away," Arthur told him. "Please, it's getting dark – help me find him."

"Of course. This is a far better use of my powers than hunting princesses."

Francis's face suddenly disappeared, replaced with an image so clear it was as though Arthur could step through the frame of the mirror and be standing right in front of his brother. Peter was curled up at the base of a tree, crying. He had one of his legs bent awkwardly, as if it was too painful to hug to his chest. Beyond him, through the trees, Arthur could see the sun setting, glinting off windows in the distant houses. It was also glinting off a set of familiar windchimes, the little fairy dancing in a slight breeze.

"But... my mother checked there. Is this where he is right now?" Arthur asked, confused.

The image disappeared, startling Arthur into crying out, worried now. Francis's face took his brother's place. "He got distracted while he was running away and ended up going in a circle. When he saw his mother looking for him, he was scared he'd get into trouble so he hid. But he slipped on some leaves and fell, hurting his ankle. Or so the fairies tell me."

"Wait. There are really fairies there?" Arthur asked, his eyes widening.

"Yes. Didn't you think that would be the case when you met me?" Francis seemed amused.

Arthur was about to ask more when he remembered what he'd come to Francis for. "Peter's hurt?"

"I think it's just a sprained ankle but I'm not a doctor," Francis said and Arthur could imagine him shrugging.

"I have to help him!" Arthur declared.

"Be careful," said Francis with a small smile.

Nodding absently, Arthur spun on his heel and hurried off, not bothering to stop to close the door properly.

* * *

A few hours later saw Arthur return. He had driven to his parents' house and insisted they checked the places they'd tried before. This time, with Arthur and his knowledge, they found the terrified Peter. There had been tears, both on his mother's and his brother's behalf who cried even more when they went to hospital and found that his ankle was, indeed, sprained. Once everyone had been settled, Arthur had been provided dinner and his parents had promised to have a _quiet_ discussion over their problems while Patrick (who was the only other brother to respond in time to be involved in the drama) helped Peter to bed.

The house was quiet as he entered and he winced at the sudden lonely feeling that permeated the place after the noise and chaos of being with family. Maybe he should get a pet of some sort, he absently thought. Then he remembered the mirror who had helped him and he made his way up.

Opening the door wider and much calmer than earlier, he strode into the room. "Francis?" he said as he stopped in front of it, surveying his scruffy appearance. Annoyed that no-one had mentioned it, Arthur pulled a twig from his hair and brushed a leaf to the floor. "Francis. Come on, you stupid mirror." He brushed down his clothes which had burrs attached to them. "Are you really going to make me say it?" When he got no answer to that, either, Arthur sighed and recited what must, he realised, be the activation spell. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, will you get out here?"

"What's wrong?" Francis asked as he appeared, raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing. I just wanted to talk to you," Arthur replied. He stopped there, however, when he noted how surprised Francis looked.

"You did?"

"Well, yes," Arthur assured him. "I wanted to thank you for helping me find my brother."

"That's what I was created for."

"I know. But still: thank you." Arthur paused then, thinking. "Is... Is there anything I can do for you in return?"

Francis blinked at him. "Well. Only... Could you remove this frame? It feels horrid, encasing me like this."

"Er." Arthur stared at it. "You don't like it?"

"As the spell suggests, I am meant to be hung on the wall."

"Do you really want to be stuck to a wall for the rest of your-?" Arthur broke off, unsure if a magic mirror technically had a life. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes."

Arthur considered how annoyed his mother would be when she found out what he'd done to the mirror. He reminded himself that she'd essentially given him the thing when she'd made him take it so he could do what he wanted with it. "Then I'll find someone to help you in the morning."

"Thank you." Francis sighed. "One of my previous owners wanted to take me with them. It was a rather horrible experience."

"I'll bet," said Arthur, rather bemused. "Is there anywhere in particular you'd like to be hung?"

Francis paused at that before glancing to the side. "Well... In your room? If you don't mind."

Surprised, Arthur asked, "Why?"

Briefly, Francis smirked at Arthur and his eyes widened, ready to protest and argue with a semi-animate object. Then the smirk morphed into a fond smile. "I have the feeling I'll be happiest there," Francis admitted

"Oh," said Arthur, his cheeks heating up even though he wasn't quite sure what that meant. He turned his head and coughed into his fist. "Well. All right. We'll see to that in the morning. So, um... Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Arthur. Sleep well."

**Author's Note:**

> The thing about Snow White is real, by the way.
> 
> Also, I see this going one of two ways: a psychological horror where Arthur is convinced by Francis to find someone to fall in love with and then he ends up watching, say, Alfred or someone far too much to be healthy and going insane; Arthur falls in love with Francis and so keeps him as he grows older and older till he dies.
> 
> In either case, Arthur dies. =/
> 
> Also, I was going to originally write something about mirror universes with Arthur and Francis being their mirror selves but then I had the inspiration for this while I was writing the first part and decided on this instead.


End file.
